Pleasure Quotes - Page 2

• There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

  Bertrand Russell

  Knowledge, Useless, Learning Knowledge

  "In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays". Book by Bertrand Russell, Ch. 2: 'Useless' Knowledge, 1935.

  105 Copy quote

  Show source

• The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount.

  Joseph Addison

  Life, Happiness, Men

  Joseph Addison (1793). “A Collection of Interesting Anecdotes, Memoirs, Allegories, Essays, and Poetical Fragments”, p.336

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure.

  Oscar Wilde

  Men, Feeling Sad, Sorrow

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Picture of Dorian Gray (Diversion Classics)”, p.119, Diversion Books

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• Human beings need pleasure the way they need vitamins.

  Lionel Tiger

  Play, Needs, Way

  50 Copy quote

• Pleasant it is, when over a great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze from shore upon another's great tribulation: not because any man's troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive from what ills you are free yourself is pleasant.

  Lucretius

  Gratitude, Men, Wind

  "On the Nature of Things" by Lucretius, Book II, lines 1 - 4 (tr. Rouse),

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Scratching is one of nature's sweetest gratifications, and nearest at hand.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Cat, Hands, Sweetest

  "The Works of Michael de Montaigne: Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy".

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• He who can at all times sacrifice pleasure to duty approaches sublimity.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Sacrifice, Duty, Obligation

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p.200, 1895.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.

  Jeremy Bentham

  Pain, Government, Two

  An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation ch. 1 (1789)

  64 Copy quote

  Show source

• The great source of pleasure is variety.

  Samuel Johnson

  Life, Source, Variety

  'The Lives of the English Poets' (1779-81) 'Butler'

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Pleasure is the business of the young, business the pleasure of the old.

  Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke

  Young

  11 Copy quote

• Pleasure is everything.

  Diana Vreeland

  8 Copy quote

• The most intolerable pain is produced by prolonging the keenest pleasure.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Pain, Prolonging

  1903 Man and Superman, 'Maxims for Revolutionists: Beauty and Happiness'.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let not the enjoyment of pleasures now within your grasp, be carried to such excess as to incapacitate you from future repetition.

  Seneca the Younger

  Excess, Repetition, Enjoyment

  15 Copy quote

• Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible.

  W. H. Auden

  Mean, Guides, Aesthetics

  1963 The Dyer's Hand,'Reading'.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is a characteristic of pleasure that we can never recognize it to be pleasure till after it is gone.

  Alexander Smith

  Gone, Characteristics

  Alexander Smith (1863). “Dreamthorp: A Book of Essays Written in the Country”, p.60

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Pleasure has no logic; it never treads in its own footsteps.

  Alexander Smith

  Logic, Footsteps

  Alexander Smith (1863). “Dreamthorp: A Book of Essays Written in the Country”, p.60

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• He that would have the perfection of pleasure must be moderate in the use of it.

  Benjamin Whichcote

  Perfection, Use, Moderates

  7 Copy quote

• If I had a humble spirit in my service who, when I asked for a glass of water, brought me the world's costliest wines blended in a chalice, I should dismiss him, in order to teach him that my pleasure consists, not in what I enjoy, but in having my own way.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Wine, Humble, Glasses

  Soren Kierkegaard (1946). “Either/or”

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.

  Alan Watts

  Inspiring, Pain, Mental Health

  Alan Watts (1951). “The Wisdom of Insecurity”, Vintage

  33 Copy quote

  Show source

• A simple enough pleasure, surely, to have breakfast alone with one's husband, but how seldom married people in the midst of life achieve it.

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh

  Marriage, Memories, Husband

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh (2002). “Wisdom from Gift from the Sea”, p.35, Peter Pauper Press, Inc.

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!

  Charles Dickens

  Funny, Christmas, Xmas

  "The Pickwick Papers". Book by Charles Dickens, 1836.

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.

  Seneca the Younger

  Wisdom, Future, Way

  12 Copy quote

• Pleasure may come from illusion, but happiness can come only of reality.

  Nicolas Chamfort

  Happiness, Reality, May

  20 Copy quote

• The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

  Aristotle

  Wise, Pain, Philosophical

  49 Copy quote

• You must have a cigarette. A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?

  Oscar Wilde

  Cigarette Smoke, Perfect, Smoking

  'The Picture of Dorian Gray' (1891) ch. 6

  22 Copy quote

  Show source